Merriam-Webster's Word of the Day for September 21, 2026 is elegiac. Elegiac means relating to or comprising an elegy. An elegy itself is a sorrowful poem or song lamenting someone who is dead. The adjective elegiac is often used to describe writing or music that mourns something now in the past. For example, an album's elegiac tone can be quite moving. The fiction of Jacqueline Harpman is described as having an elegiac loneliness that resonates with our current solitary existence. English has this specific adjective, elegiac, to describe sorrowful or nostalgic sentiments. The word entered English in the 15th century from Late Latin and ultimately Greek origins. Originally, elegiac referred to a specific type of poetic couplet. Today, it also broadly describes anything that is sorrowful or nostalgic. The English word elegy, also derived from the same Greek root, has evolved to encompass a wider range of laments for what is lost.